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Jenks, Quentin get paid

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

It looks like Bobby Jenks will be part of the SoxFest lineup after all.

jenks0120

Let's hope he didn't hurt his back again.

Jenks and Carlos Quentin avoided arbitration by agreeing to injury settlements terms with the Sox, leaving John Danks and Tony Pena as the only arbitration-eligible players remaining.

Jenks will be making $7.5M, a salary that will be pretty hard for him to live up to unless he can rediscover his 2007 form. That puts him on track for an eight-figure salary in 2011.

Quentin, meanwhile, will be making $3.2 million in 2010.  Despite the injury issues, he’s actually comfortably ahead of where he would have been had he accepted the same deal Gavin Floyd did, roughly $500,000 so.

Danks stands a great shot of getting the Mark Buehrle treatment — somewhere along the lines of three years with a club option, $20 million or so guaranteed.  After the Mike MacDougal fiasco, I’m guessing they’re going to want to go year-to-year with Pena.

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Jenks weight flap may be light on impact

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

In the ever-developing case of Jenks v. Conditioning, we know which side Kenny Williams is taking:

“It comes into question when you are not in the best shape you can be in, now doesn’t it?” If [Jenks] doesn’t like that, I don’t really care if he doesn’t like that. It’s the truth.

“I’ve seen it time and time again. We would not be in his corner and we would not be real friends, real people of support, if we didn’t give him the information.”

At first glance, this seemed like more coal in the engine on the train out of town.  Now,  I don’t think this necessarily increases the chances of Williams trading Bobby Jenks.  In fact, it might mean that he’s staying.

Here are some reasons.

No. 1: His words are awfully harsh about a guy whom Williams is supposed to pretend has value.

I went back to the Nick Swisher trade last year.  As the rift grew larger between the clubhouse core, Ozzie Guillen and Swisher, I tried to see if Kenny Williams had anything to say.

Here’s what I found from the Sun-Times in the wake of the Sox’s ALDS exit:

After the 6-2 loss to the Rays, general manager Ken Williams stopped at Swisher’s locker, gave him a hug and said, ”Come back next year and start all over again.”

Reports began to surface soon after saying that Williams was shopping Swisher, but he had nothing but his typically terse statements until the trigger was finally pulled.  Here’s a deal in which Williams was content to get nothing in return but salary relief, and even then, he kept his lips zipped.

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Old news: On Vizquel, Jenks and Contreras

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

There’s still time for Omar Vizquel to change his mind, you know.

The rumored one-year deal to aquire the quadragenerian shortstop hasn’t been made official; MLB.com, the Trib and Sun-Times are all calling it varying degrees of “close.”

Back in 2004, all outlets were saying the same thing as the Sox and Vizquel worked toward a two-year deal.  The Trib’s headline read “close,” the Sun-Times’ version said “imminent.”  Then in came the Giants with an extra year, and Vizquel took off for San Francisco, leaving shortstop in the unreliable hands of Juan Uribe, and we know how that turned out.

Anyway, I went to the archives to see if there was any perceivable bad blood between the two parties.  Judging from Kenny Williams’ quotes in a Scot Gregor story from Nov. 16, 2004, nope.  While he was described as “shock,” he seemed to chalk it up to the business:

“It was obviously disappointing,” Williams said. “But the Giants saw fit to trump our offer and that put them over the top. That’s the bottom line.”

I imagine if Williams had any hard feelings, they were erased when he won a World Series ring. Vizquel is still looking for one.

(Also found while looking through the November 2004 archives — some Trib reader named J.J. making the argument for the Sox to acquire Alfonso Soriano.)

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A leader emerges in race out of town

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

If you picked Bobby Jenks as your offseason scapegoat, you might be feeling pretty good about yourself after reading this Scott Merkin article:

Jenks is not a happy man, and it has nothing to do with another offseason beginning with trade rumors. Instead, during a weekend chat with MLB.com, Jenks took umbrage with the White Sox once again calling out his conditioning at the end of the 2009 season.

“I’ve done everything I can do, I’ve done everything that is physically possible, to make myself in better shape this year,” said Jenks. “Where the years previously I didn’t lose weight in-season, I didn’t want my weight issue to be a factor as to why I had an off season.”

Also mentioned is that the Sox didn’t allow Jenks to travel with the team for the final six games of the season, even though they wanted to.

This is an article to store away, as it does a good job of recapping the late-season smoke signals, which prompted Chris Le Duca to say that Jenks had thrown his last pitch for the White Sox.

Though it may seem like another situation in which the Sox trash an outgoing player before he’s officially going out, but a similiar situation is brewing in the Twin Cities’ media. Apparently, Joe Nathan “failed because he couldn’t breathe,” although we’ve talked about how he breathes a little too hard.

It’d be fun to see what would happen if Jenks and Nathan were on the block at the same time.  Both are under control for two years, with Nathan earning $11.25 million in each of the next two seasons, and Jenks set to make $7 million or so in his second year of arbitration.  Jenks’ presence would more adversely affect Nathan’s stock than the other way around, as the Sox could position him as the cheaper closer alternative.  Both would be selling low.

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